LIBSMBCLIENT(7)

💖 libsmbclient — the manual, but make it make sense

okay bestie, welcome to LIBSMBCLIENT(7) — yes, section 7, the "miscellaneous" section, and no, that doesn't mean it's random, it means it's a library situation and not a "type this in your shell" situation. stay with me 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

libsmbclient — an extension library for browsers and that can be used as a generic browsing API.

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

Browser URL:

smb://[[[domain:]user[:password@]]server[/share[/path[/file]]]]
[?options]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So first things first: this tool is part of the samba(7) suite, periodt.

libsmbclient is a library toolset that lets applications mess with CIFS/SMB network resources using many of the standard POSIX functions you'd normally use for poking at local UNIX/Linux files. and it is NOT just a browsing thing — files can be opened and read or written, permissions changed, file times modified, attributes and ACL's can be manipulated, and so on. literally all of it. and yes, of course, its functionality includes all the capabilities commonly called browsing, because that's the gateway drug. 👑

one thing though — libsmbclient can not be used directly from the command line. she's not that kind of girl. instead she provides an extension of the capabilities of tools such as file managers and browsers. this man page describes the configuration options for this tool so that the user may obtain greatest utility of use. 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

here's the vibe check on what the URLs actually mean:

🌈 What the URLs mean

• smb:// — shows all workgroups or domains that are visible in the network. the behavior matches that of the Microsoft Windows Explorer, iconic honestly.

the method of locating the list of workgroups (domains also) varies depending on the setting of the context variable (context->options.browse_max_lmb_count). it is the responsibility of the application that calls this library to set this to a sensible value. this is a compile-time option. this value determines the maximum number of local master browsers to query for the list of workgroups.

to ensure that the list is complete for those present on the network, all master browsers must be queried. so if there are a large number of workgroups on the network, the time spent querying will be significant. 😭

for small networks (just a few workgroups), it is suggested to set this value to 0, instructing libsmbclient to query all local master browsers. in an environment that has many workgroups a more reasonable setting may be around 3. balance, bestie. 🧚

• smb://name/ — this command causes libsmbclient to perform a name look-up. if the NAME<1D> or NAME<1B> exists (workgroup name), libsmbclient will list all servers in the workgroup (or domain). otherwise, a name look-up for the NAME<20> (machine name) will be performed, and the list of shared resources on the server will be displayed. lowkey elegant. ✨

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🎀 the config file hunt

when libsmbclient is invoked by an application it searches for a directory called .smb in the $HOME directory that is specified in the users shell environment. it then searches for a file called smb.conf which, if present, will fully over-ride the system /etc/samba/smb.conf file.

if instead libsmbclient finds a file called ~/.smb/smb.conf.append, it will read the system /etc/samba/smb.conf and then append the contents of the ~/.smb/smb.conf.append to it. so like, override or extend — pick your fighter. 🥊

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💜 and the USER thing

libsmbclient will check the users shell environment for the USER parameter and will use its value when if the user parameter was not included in the URL. (yes, that sentence is shaped like that. we keep the facts exactly as they are, no cap.) 🫶

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🔥 PROGRAMMERS GUIDE 🔥

Watch this space for future updates.

that's it. that's the whole section. main character energy of a section that says nothing yet. 💀

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

This man page is part of version 4.24.7 of the Samba suite.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.

The libsmbclient manpage page was written by John H Terpstra.

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okay that's the whole page, you're fully caught up, go forth and browse 🦋

Samba 4.24.7 — 09/09/2026 — mwah, ty for reading, ily, see you in the next man page 💅💖